Four, including two women arrested for kidnapping & selling children in Vizag

VISAKHAPATNAM: AUGUST 23

Four members, including four women of a gang involved in kidnapping and selling of children, were arrested by Gopalapatnam police in Vizag city on Friday. Four children were also rescued from the gang. The cops also nabbed three persons for buying the children and the two more were held for helping the gang.

The arrested have been identified as kingpin B Nagamani, J Anand alias Chandu alias Sekhar, T Sumanth Kumar, M Lakshmi, all residents of Vizag city.

The gang had allegedly kidnapped five children and sold four of them to childless couples for money between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1.2 lakh. Of the five children, four were rescued by the police.

City police chief RK Meena said that the kidnap of children was exposed after Gopalapatnam police recently solved a kidnapping case within a few hours and managed to rescue a two-year-old boy at Simhachalam area in the city.

The police officer said that one N Kantamma from Hukumpeta area of Vizag Agency lodged a complaint that her two-year-old son N Abhiram was kidnapped by a person Sekhar. Based on the CCTV footage at Simhachalam area, the police nabbed the kidnapper and rescued the boy.

The investigation has revealed that Sekhar alias Change is one of the members of the kidnapping gang and the gang has been kidnapping children from 2016. The police said that the prime accused Nagamani, a resident of Arilova, who runs a brothel house informed Sumanth, with whom she had an illegal affair that her sister Sathyavathi in Eluru is in need of children.

Sumanth hatched a plan to kidnap children to sell to childless couples. In November 2016, the duo kidnapped an eight-month-old girl, who was with a beggar near VUDA Park area and sold the baby to Sathyavathi's husband B Rambabu for Rs 50,000.

Later Nagamani led the gang and they kidnapped four more children and sold to various persons. DCP (Zone II) B Uday Bhakasar said that the rescued babies were being handed over to their family members, and the hunt is on nab few others and rescue one more child.